Elías Restaurante Urban Kitchen

Elías sits on Carrer de Sant Elies in the centre of Palma and simply takes the name of the lane it stands in. The side street runs off Carrer dels Olms, a short way from La Rambla, and lies away from the main tourist routes. If you don't know there is a restaurant here, you walk straight past it. Behind it stands a family. The Argentine cook Fabián Luzzini works the kitchen, his wife Marilina Barbieri looks after the dining room, and their two daughters help out when they have time. The house runs on a single line as its motto: comida casera, comida de verdad — home-made food, real food. The words Urban Kitchen in the official name describe no particular style of cooking. What defines Elías is a short menu on a Mediterranean base, a small plancha where Luzzini grills the meat, and a set lunch that changes every day. The daytime trade carries the place: toasts in the morning, then the carte and the menú del día. The kitchen at Elías: plancha, home cooking and an Argentine hand Luzzini is an Argentine of Italian descent and a veteran of Palma's restaurant world. Before opening his own place he cooked at Restaurante Bruselas, later at Marítimo and in the kitchen of Club Deportivo Portitxol. His craft shows on the plancha: picaña has earned the house a name, and entrecôte and entraña sit alongside it on the menu. With them comes chimichurri, the Argentine herb sauce, which here also accompanies the grilled octopus with smoked paprika. The rest of the menu stays deliberately short. The starters include patatas bravas, croquetas of boletus or spinach with a caramelised onion cream, sobrasada croquetas with Mahón cheese, crisp potatoes with truffle mayonnaise and parmesan, gyozas, and crisp calamares with guacamole, trampó and lime. The piadina comes with burrata, mortadella, fig confit, rocket pesto and a pistachio and parmesan crisp. Among the salads the Mediterranean base meets borrowings from further afield: a poke with rice, smoked salmon, avocado, edamame, carrot and mango, plus lentils with trampó and smoked cod, or goat's cheese with tomato, serrano ham and avocado. The burgers are house classics — the Elías with beef, bacon and breaded camembert, the Sibarita with gorgonzola and caramelised onion, alongside a vegan version and one with crisp chicken. Next to them sit woks with noodles or rice. To finish: crêpes with dulce de leche, a chocolate coulant with vanilla ice cream, or the cakes of the day. Breakfast and the menú del día The morning belongs to the tostadas — with hummus, egg and seeds, with avocado and a seed mix, or with ibérico ham. Beside them stand the cakes of the day and crêpes with chocolate or dulce de leche. The set lunch is the heart of the house. There is a choice of two starters and two main courses, with drink, bread and dessert included. Because it changes daily, the family announces it through their own channels; one of the daughters looks after that. It is this menu that has made Elías known beyond its own quarter — both Última Hora and the Majorca Daily Bulletin have given the little house reviews of its own, and in both cases the midday table was the focus. The room and the family behind it The premises previously housed a vegetarian restaurant. The family renovated them and furnished them brightly, in very light tones, with art on the walls; the elder daughter is a clothes designer and hangs some of her own pieces there too. The result is a small, quiet dining room where the prices stay deliberately restrained — which was exactly the idea when the family took the place on: a restaurant in the centre of Palma where you feel at home. Elías does not stand alone in this. The block between Carrer del Carme and Carrer dels Olms has become an address for small, family-run kitchens that cook carefully and price modestly — places you cannot see from La Rambla and therefore have to know about.